Geographical Reviews: Atlas Nationaux

Summary

This article comprises three book reviews from the Geographical Review journal. The first reviews the collected volume Oceanography, highlighting L. H. N. Cooper's new theory on subsurface water density distribution, which proposes that ocean waters are arranged in thick layers of 'resident water' separated by shallow discontinuity layers—a concept with significant implications for deep-sea circulation, radiocarbon dating, and vertical distribution of marine life. The second reviews a Soviet monograph on national atlases, systematically elaborating the definitional criteria, compilation principles, and content classification for national atlases. The third reviews Kartografia Ekonomiczna, the first Polish work on economic cartography, introducing its classification system for economic maps and technical cartographic methods.